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May Japan Trip 2016 | Day 7

Today I got a late start. After celebrating Pablo’s promotion a late night business emergency kept me awake later than I wanted. So I ended up missing Furuta. I was pretty bummed but “shoganai na” (it can’t be helped).

Nagato Sensei

Third class and I really am finding a groove. There’s small details that make things difficult but overall I feel like I’m making progress. Pablo and I were able to keep up, and we’re still getting a little help from Nagato Sensei.

He also built things up a little more from last class, but still kept it in the realm of understandable. We were even able to expand and improvise a little on the movement.

It’s still very tough to keep up, but things are starting to fall into place.

Someya Sensei

I was a little more prepared for his class today. Although still sore, I was determined to be more conscious and deliberate in my movement.

We ended up doing the nage Waza from the Tenchijin. On hardwood. But working with Matt and Brian we kept kept things reasonable.

I love throws, and although I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to Ukemi on hardwood, I was looking forward to learning the proper throwing techniques. While the basic movement was the same there were subtle details that totally shifted my understanding. I began to think of how this changed certain techniques that contained the throws.

Most of the way throwing was done was in the context of armor – which explained why it looked different from their counterparts in Judo.

Again, everything begins with the foundation, but also understanding the context. It’s very hard, but it pays off.

Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton is an 8th degree black belt in the Bujinkan, and travels regularly to Japan to train. In addition to being the owner and head instructor of Todai Dojo, Scott is also the CEO of a national manufacturing company. He has also received training in other martial arts, and in-depth modern weapons training.